Feb 172023
 

I have a *pile* of books to sell; the first of them are now on ebay. More will be added as I get around to it…

An Illustrated Guide to Space Warfare by David Hobbs, 1986

TC-188 Aviator’s Recognition Manual March 1977

FM-1-88 Aviator’s Recognition Manual July 1980

The Evolution of the Cruise Missile by Kenneth Werrell

FLYGPLANS-RITNINGAR 6 SWEDISH AIR FORCE

USS Iowa BB 61 Warship’s Data 3 First Edition 1986 Robert F SUMRALL

Aerofax Minigraph #14 Lockheed F-94 Starfire by Francillon & Keaveney 1986

Warplanes of the Future by Bill Gunston

“Box Kites to Bombers: The Story of the Glenn L. Martin Company”

American Secret Projects : Bombers, Attack and Anti-Submarine Aircraft 1945…

New Earths: Restructuring Earth and Other Planets by James Oberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 9:14 pm
Oct 142022
 

White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight

The idea of reflecting sunlight in order to a lower the planetary temperature is not new. The idea is sound, though it would be an incomplete solution to the problem of global warming if carbon emissions remain as they are: sure, the temperature might decrease, but the carbon dioxide would still chemically alter the environment. The oceans would continue to acidify, for instance. And if the temperature issue is abated by reflection, the drive to decarbonize would drop, so the Chinese and Indians would continue to crank out coal plants, and the US would continue to fail to build nuclear powerplants.

Still, adding reflecting aerosols to the upper atmosphere or even glitter out in space would be useful at a certain level. There are negatives with each approach: one of the easiest, adding sulfur dioxide to the upper atmosphere by spraying it from jetliners, would result in some amount of acid rain. But something I see all too often: “the attempt to reflect sunlight will result in a new ice age.” This is, of course, nonsense. The amount of sunlight that would need to be reflect would be *vast,* while any attempt to reflect that much would start at a far lower level and sloooowly ramp up to that level. The effects, both positive and negative, would take a long time too accrue, and the process could be adjusted to account for things.

Some reflection ideas seem not only easier but more practical than others. In regions that are much more beset by summer heat than winter cold, simply painting black roofs white would not only aid in the cooling of the planet but the cooling of the building directly. Alternatively, cover black roofs with black solar panels: you don’t affect reflection, but you reduce the need for solar farms elsewhere that would replace bright dirt with dark solar panels.

Additionally, ground-level reflection strategies that cover anything but asphalt had better be done at sea. From space, the darkest areas of Earth are asphalt and deep oceans; covering the sea, especially near the equator, with reflective stuff would be more effective than covering lighter dirt, rock or especially sand in higher latitudes. I’ve even seen people float the idea of adding reflectants (like vast white insulating blankets) to high latitude glaciers. While that might add some small benefit for the glacier, that same white blanket would do far better work spread out over the surface of the Pacific near Indonesia.

A program to do enough of this sort of thing to effectively counter global warming would need to be a multi-national effort. The US going about it alone would be not only unlikely to be terribly effective, it would be an economic hit to the US, leaving the actual big polluters off the hook. but on the other hand, I’m less than thrilled about the idea of Chinese aircraft spraying crap into the air.

 

 Posted by at 9:52 am
Jul 162019
 

A year ago Hasbro launched their “Haslab” crowdfunding project. This is for developing – or not – toys of unusual size and cost that would be financially dangerously risky to develop without crowdfunding. Their first project was the ginormous Jabba’s Sail Barge from “Return of the Jedi;” it was successfully developed and sold to the nearly 6,000 backers for $500 a pop. They’ve come out with a new project: a 27-inch-tall Unicron from “Transformers: The Movie.” A 27-inch-tall figure toy is not that unusual; before Disney screwed the pooch on Star Wars, they were selling Darth Vader and stormtrooper toys bigger than that. But what Hasbro is doing with their Unicron figure it to make it as mind-bogglingly complex as possible. And consequently, the price is a bit much… $574.99. But if you just have to have a giant Unicron that somehow transforms between robot and planet forms, or you want to speculate on what the ebay resale value on these might be (there are a number of Sail Barges on ebay now all with Buy It Now prices of a grand and up), then here ya go. With 46 days left in the crowdfunding campaign, there are currently 920 out of 8,000 backers. Maybe you could buy two and sell one on ebay for twice the price, thus you end up with a free Unicron. Better still, buy three, sell one, send one to me.

Transformers: War For Cybertron Unicron

 

 

 Posted by at 2:02 am
Jun 302019
 

Today seems to be a day of days when it comes to political whackadoodlery.

The 2020 Presidential election, more than a year away, is already weird enough, what with Gropey Joe and all the rest so far refusing to denounce left wing violence in Portland. But it’s getting even weirder: it seems that during the recent televised Dem debates, *somebody* used real-time computer AI video trickery to either add or subtract a pimple to Tulsi Gabbard’s chin:

On one hand… it’s kinda silly. On the other hand, the ability to create a “deep fake” videos IN REAL TIME is more than a little disturbing.

Chin pimple suddenly disappears during presidential debate

The easiest explanation is that the pimple was real and a filter was applied to “erase” it and the filter failed from time to time. But then… isn’t that what makeup is for? Using digital trickery for “good” is only going to cause people’s conspiracy senses to tingle.

But Tulsi Gabbard is on record claiming that she had no such pimple, and called for an investigation. It seems like a lame thing for a major organization like NBC News to digitally add a pimple to someone; if this was done, I’d bet that the cause was lower down the totem pole. Perhaps little more than a tech having fun with his new Add-A-Pimple App. But that might be even worse. Bad enough if it takes a billion dollar corporation working in cahoots with a political party to pull this off; but if one guy working by his lonesome can do this, then we stand on the edge of what has long been inevitable: complete lack of trust in *any* form of news gathering. Because we are about fifteen minutes away from video being utterly untrustworthy.

 Posted by at 11:13 pm
Jul 102018
 

Science is awesome.

Oxygen levels on early Earth rose, fell several times before great oxidation event

Short form: around 2.4 billion years ago, the rise of early plant life on Earth (largely cyanobcteria in the oceans) led to the first appearance of free oxygen in the atmosphere. Prior to this the atmosphere was pretty much oxygen-free, all oxygen being bound up in carbon dioxide. As the cyanobacteria emitted oxygen as a waste gas, it started to build up, but stayed at relatively low levels in the atmosphere for around a *billion* years because the oceans and land surfaces were busily drinking up the free oxygen. It wasn’t until about 850 million years ago that the oxygen “sinks” were filled up and oxygen could really start to accumulate in the atmosphere, finally allowing the development of modern animal life that depends on that oxygen.

New evidence suggests that 150 million years prior to the Great Oxidation Event of 2.4 billion years ago there was another “pulse” in the oxygen levels that fell back down to near-zero levels.The early history of life on Earth was clearly complex.

For billions of years Earth was a living place, but it would not have *looked* like a living place to modern astronomers. Right now people looking for signs of life in the universe are looking for places with free oxygen, but for Earth that’s only been the most recent quarter of the history of life on Earth. For a vast stretch of time the oceans were filled with dissolved iron; it took *forever* for available biologically emitted oxygen to finally bind with all that iron and sink to the ocean floor (forming the iron oxide deposits such as the one shown below). Only after all the iron was consumed could free oxygen really begin to accumulate. So there could well be other planets out there with oceans and life and atmospheres filled with carbon dioxide… and your efforts to terraform them will meet with the serious issue of the whole *planet* greedily gobbling up all the oxygen you try to fill the atmosphere with.

 Posted by at 12:25 am
Apr 132017
 

So, things seem to be getting interesting over North Korea way. NBC news is reporting rumors that the US may launch a military strike on the Norks if they pop off another one of their lameass fun-sized nukes; this, of course, would be an act of war, so Seoul would likely get a mighty artillery barrage and the war would be back on.

But here’s another ponderable: let’s assume that the Norks develop a functioning deliverable nuke *and* a functional ICBM. Now, if Lil’ Kim was a rational actor, he might issue a press release stating “Huzzah! We got us some ICBMs! Respect ma authoritah!” and maybe launch a sizable Sputnik into orbit just to prove what the Nork ICBMs are capable of. There is little else that they could do with a very small nuclear missile force… at least, not rationally.

So, let’s assume that Kim *isn’t* a rational actor. Let’s assume, instead, that he’s a nut, a nut in charge of a nation that is run more like a cult. So, let’s assume North Korea has *one* ICBM and *one* nuke… and his decision is to launch it straight into downtown Los Angeles. There are three immediate possibilities:

1: The ICBM fails and drops the nuke into the drink.

2: The ICBM works, but the nuke doesn’t, and the dud smacks into California leaving a small crater and a radioactive waste site.

3: KERBLAMMO. No more Hollywood.

Now it’s time for the US to respond. Let’s assume that the US has competent, rational political and military leadership when this happens. So what would be the right responses? Seems to me:

1: The US launches a full-scale but *conventional* military campaign to wipe out the North Korean leadership and military capability. Cruise missiles, carpet bombings and eventually ground invasion.

2: *Maybe* a nuclear response…

3: If the US loses a city to a nuclear attack from another nation, IMO it would be both insane and monumentally stupid for the US to *not* respond in kind. Realistically, it displays weakness and invites further attack from other sources. So, if the Norks nuke the US, the US would have to nuke the Norks. But just how much?

I believe most Americans would feel justified in unleashing a nuclear rain of ruin on any nation that destroys an American city. If the 21st century to date has taught us anything, it’s that a lot of people get all snippy about enemies in their “holy cities,” most of which seem to be dry, dusty hellholes with nothing to recommend them. Now, the US has little in the way of “holy cities,” but I’m pretty sure that even Hollywood would gain “sacred ground” status if it gets nuked. So…. North Korea nukes Los Angeles, we walk nukes all up and down Lil’ Kims ass. Lots of people would be damned happy about that.

Of course, a *lot* of people wouldn’t be happy with that. The fallout would undoubtedly unnerve the Chinese, south Koreans and Japanese. But beyond that, there just might be some *ethical* issues with evaporating North Korea. It is, after all, a nation full not of monsters but slaves, slaves to an idiot ideology (NOTE: We trashed the Nazis and Imperial Japanese and repaved their local cultures to suit out purposes… even unto making changes to their religions. Doing the same in North Korea would probably be non-controversial. But oddly, doing the same in some *other* combat zones I can think of… jeez, even mention that, and the SJW’s get all screamy.) and a maniac military/political hierarchy. Some people might say torching them all might not be entirely moral. That said, North Korea has a sizable military; if the military could be nuked out of existence with minimal civilian damage, I think most would see that as fair. But that would also be virtually impossible.

So: North Korea goes and does something… a little odd. How to respond?

 

 Posted by at 11:15 pm
Mar 302017
 

Two-plus-hour launch window opens at 4:27 PM Mountain time (6:27 PM eastern) tonight. If it is aborted due to weather, another window opens tomorrow at the same time.

This will be a success if it puts the payload into the correct orbit, regardless of whether or not the booster is recovered. But if the booster is successfully recovered, especially in good enough condition to be used *again…* safe to say, we’re in a new era.

UPDATE:

SHAZAM!

Technical webcast:

And then there’s this from a prior landing. NSFW audio:

 

 Posted by at 2:30 pm
Mar 282017
 

So, on Monday SpaceX did a static test fire of their next Falcon 9. This one will, hopefully, launch a payload to orbit next week. But the spiffy thing is that it *already* launched a payload to orbit, a Dragon ISS resupply mission in April 2016.

SpaceX has a pretty good record of recovering their boosters. That’s handy on its own… by recovering a booster, SpaceX can examine it for wear and tear and whatnot to make future boosters better. But the real goal is of course to make them as reusable as a jetliner. Successfully pulling off this next launch and recovery will go a long way towards making that goal happen.

 Posted by at 12:08 am
Nov 092016
 

I can’t help but think that the list of things in the “proposed implementation” is more “hope” than “likely to come to pass.” Trump seems to not be aware that space exists and that it’s the most important, long-range thing that a President can *actually* influence via policy.

What a Trump administration means for space

As a framework, on the whole it sounds pretty good. Whether or not it’ll come to pass… shrug.

 Posted by at 7:21 pm